I am nearly pulling my hair out. We bought these two used Brothers from a lady who retired and yes, I did see them sew, they sewed fine. We rolled them on the trailer brought them home and one of them sewed fine for a day. Not on every needle but that is normal, I think, replace the needle, retread, move on. But since then, I have them down to NO NEEDLES working. I am using her bobbins (paper) and her thread (isacord) and it is SHREDDING the thread. Like I have the needle in wrong or something and I swear I have messed with the needle enough it should be in right.
We have a Tajima Neo so they are similar, these just have a brother head but the insides are supposed to be tajima. Please help. We bought these for a steal, but no bargain if they won't work.
As a final note, I think when it does sew, the thread jumps around above the needle and below the arm, is this normal for this machine? The thread goes nice and straight and no jumping on our 2 year old neo. It sews like glass

Check your rotary hook for scratches and look for any places in the thread path that could have nicks or burrs and be less than smooth. If you don't find any rough spots, I'd guess that the hook timing is off and needs adjusted. Just a couple of things you might check.

Deepwoods listed three of the most common reasons for the thread breaks. You may also want to check the thread path to see if it is threaded correctly. The thread has to go all the way around the thread sensor disk. This is different than your Neo.

OK Thank you so much for the suggestions. I am going to devote my entire day to trying the hints you folks have provided, and one nice person who sent me a very detailed PM on some things to do. Someone suggested that the presser foot may be bent too close to the needle. A few of them are...I attached a pic...how do I fix that? I can see just grabbing it with some Vise Grips and bending it back but I can't imagine that is the suggested method.

Secondly, what if the timing for the bottom (rotary hook) is off? I have never set this. Is it hard to do?

I am trying everything I can before I call in a tech. We live about 105 miles from the nearest one and the minimum is gonna be over $300 to get him to come so I would like to try my best before I give in and call.

I'd suggest downloading the instruction manual from the link Dennis posted. There looks to be some information on adjusting the presser foot and on page 12 there's instructions on setting the hook timing. I'm guessing it's pretty much the same process on all machines and not that hard to do. About the only "trick" I know is using a #14 needle and instead of turning the scarf to the back like normal, turn it to the side and then move your needle to the correct depth position, turn the hook point to where it lightly touches the sideways needle and center it, then snug up a couple of the set screws on the hook. That should give you about a 0.2mm gap between the the hook point and the scarf when using a #11 needle. Just make sure to remove or turn the #14 needle you used for a gauge.

As far as the presser foot touching the needle. Make sure the needle is straight.

The presser feet are not hard to replace and it depends on their design. Presser Feet are usually inexpensive on most machines, probably under 7 bucks. Toyota and some Tajimas have presser feet that can be replaced without removing the needle bar. Some machines require you to disassemble the needle bar to replace them. If you have to remove the needle bar you will need to re-adjust the needle bar height and depth.

I have used the Vice-Grip method on some presser feet. If you are careful, you can bend it back to center. Just be careful not to scrape the surface of the presser foot or bend one of the adjacent feet.

If it's not detecting thread breaks, it looks like there's a button on the control panel to turn this on or off? If it's on then I believe Dennis hinted at what might be the issue in his first reply. Make sure you're wrapping the thread all the way around the thread sensor disk and that everything is threaded correctly. If the machine is not threaded correctly, that may also be your problem with the rough looking tatami stitches on your other machine. Also, you may want to check your hook timing on a couple of other needles now that you've set it just to be sure. If all that is correct, the thread break sensor might be faulty although it's usually false thread breaks when that happens. Just a few thoughts on what could be the problems. Dennis, or someone that works directly with your model machine, would be more help.

Mr. Dennis and Mr. Rob, I wish I could convey how thankful I am that your guys replied to my post. It has been a real lifesaver. I was on the road of 'oh boy, wasted money'. But I actually had it doing paying jobs this evening...yay! I can't get it to sew with Metallic thread, but oh well.

We have rethreaded the machine and only a few of the needles will the thread break stop the machine...could this be a tension issue? I NEVER mess with the tension on the tajima but i am wondering if that is what it is for some reason. It seems to do the breakage between letters, like it doesn't start back up or when it moves to another area with the same color...grr...
and on the other machine with the rough fill, it is not on all of the needles, so I can't imagine it is the bobbin...right?
Sorry for the rookie questions...we have been doing this for 5 years but we haven't had any real machine issues until these machines came in the door! lol

We've never had great luck with metallic thread but also don't do that much with it either. Couple of things that made metallics at least bearable was to use a larger needle(90/14) or a needle specifically for metallic thread, lower the stitch density a bit, and probably the best thing...slide a piece of wax paper under your hooped item between it and the needle plate or hoop a piece of wax paper below your usual backing.

Hopefully Dennis or someone will have some ideas on your thread break problem. It doesn't sound like a tension problem to me. Maybe a trim length problem if it's not actually breaking and just doesn't pick up the bobbin when it starts a new stitch?

If the rough tatami is only on some needles, the first thing I'd try is adjusting the upper tension a bit tighter on those to see if that helps. If that doesn't work, I'd move to swapping out for new needles on those and see if that helps. Check your presser feet on those needles as well and make sure they don't have some burrs that snag the thread a bit. If it's stitching fine on some needles and not others, you're don't to trial and error I'm afraid. :-/